Computer-assisted abstraction for reporting of quality measures

1. A method of tracking quality measures in one or more documents, wherein said documents are respectively associated with content abstracted from the documents,

said method comprising:

determining, based on the abstracted content, a quality measure category;

obtaining a quality measure definition corresponding to a quality measure included in the determined quality measure category, said definition including at least one quality measure criterion, keywords corresponding to the criterion and queries corresponding to the criterion;

determining, based on the keywords corresponding to the criterion, whether a portion of the abstracted content satisfies the criterion;

recording, in association with the criterion, a reference to the portion of the abstracted content that satisfies the criterion; and

selectively generating, based on the quality measure definition, a report including the query corresponding to the criterion, a query response, and the portion of the abstracted content satisfying the criterion.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the quality measure definition includes criteria for the quality measure and respective sets of queries and keywords corresponding to each criterion.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the report includes:

determining that no information was located in the documents satisfying one or more criteria;

determining that a time frame for performing the one or more criteria has not expired; and

generating an alert for the one or more determined criteria that have not expired.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the documents belong to a collection of documents that correspond to a single patient encounter.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted based on a lexicon of medical terminology.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted using a natural language processing engine.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents is linked to medical codes.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the portion of the abstracted content satisfies the criterion includes:

providing, to an abstractor, an interactive computer-user interface presenting the query, the criterion and the portion of the abstracted content; and

receiving a response to the query from the abstractor, said response affirming that the portion satisfies the criterion.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the report indicates criteria in the definition for which no abstracted content satisfying the criteria was included in the collection of documents.

10. A system for tracking quality measures in one or more documents, wherein said documents are respectively associated with content abstracted from the documents, comprising:

a processor;

a display device;

a user-input device; and

a non-transient computer-readable information storage device having program instructions recorded therein, said program instructions when executed by the processor controlling the system to:

determine, based on the abstracted content, a quality measure category;

obtain a quality measure definition corresponding to a quality measure included in the determined quality measure category, said definition including at least one quality measure criterion, keywords corresponding to the criterion and queries corresponding to the criterion;

determine, based on the keywords corresponding to the criterion, whether a portion of the abstracted content satisfies the criterion;

record, in association with the criterion, a reference to the portion of the abstracted content that satisfies the criterion; and

selectively generate, based on the quality measure definition, a report including the query corresponding to the criterion, a query response, and the portion of the abstracted content satisfying the criterion.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the quality measure definition includes criteria for the quality measure and respective sets of queries and keywords corresponding to each criterion.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the program instructions controlling the computer to generate the report include program instructions that control the computer to:

determine that no information was located in the documents satisfying one or more criteria;

determine that a time frame for performing the one or more criteria has not expired; and

generate an alert for the one or more determined criteria that have not expired.

13. The system of claim 10 , wherein the documents belong to a collection of documents that correspond to a single patient encounter.

14. The system of claim 10 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted based on a lexicon of medical terminology.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents comprises content abstracted using a natural language processing engine.

16. The system of claim 10 , wherein the content abstracted from the documents is linked to medical codes.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the program instructions controlling the computer to determine that the portion of the abstracted content satisfies the criterion:

include program instructions that control the computer to:

provide, to an abstractor, an interactive computer-user interface presenting the query, the criterion and the portion of the abstracted content; and

receive a response to the query from the abstractor, said response affirming that the portion satisfies the criterion.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein the report indicates criteria in the definition for which no abstracted content satisfying the criteria was included in the collection of documents.